Three months ago, there were three of us. Then we became four with the addition of our new guy Luke - aka ‘data killa’ - who not only does data slaying, but plenty of other bits and pieces too. One thing Sooz and I have done since day one is pack sample boxes.

The routine for this is: retrieve polybox from cupboard, grab five ice-cold Jimmy’s and inspect each one to make sure they’re fit for the addressee. Lay in ice sheet, lay in Jimmy’s and finally lay another ice sheet on the top. Close the lid and wrap with two layers of Sellotape at either end. Once wrapped, fill in and print off consignee form, get business cards, two stickers, one coaster and write (in your best handwriting) the nicest compliment slip you possibly can before paperclipping it all together, doing final checks and leaving post by the door to go out.

Wow. We must have done a thousand of the things. After getting fairly tired of doing it, it was a huge relief to pass this task on to our first real employee. However, ‘letting go’ of the duty is a pretty hard task. “It needs to be done exactly like this” or “you need another layer of Sellotape”. It sounds so picky but you’ve got to be! Finally, once you’re happy passing this task on, you can forget about it and focus on the slightly more important things like building a presentation for The Co-op Group.

It’s then time to hire the next person. Cue our London sheriff. We have a dude called Dan out on the streets of London selling into the independents, which is something I try to do when I have time in London in between meetings but this just isn’t sustainable. Knowing we have someone in the city full time smashing down stores is such a great thing. Once the training and everything else is done, the feeling of freedom from another role is just amazing, again being able to build the ever-important Co-op presentation. We have a few more roles to fill to allow us to simply steer the Jimmy’s ship (hopefully to somewhere hot) and not get bogged down with the everyday practices.

My cousin Peter once said “don’t sweat the small stuff”. It resonated highly with me and to know we should really only be sweating the really big stuff is very important. Here’s to building an incredible crew and to an awesome summer ahead.

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